We need to talk - Complex mental illness.

In my final years of studying occupational therapy, I leaned into the area of mental health.?I found the place I wanted to practice.?

On graduation, I worked in a long-stay psychiatric hospital, this was 1991 deinstitutionalisation was still progressing.

Within 12 months, I began working as an OT in an ‘integrated mental health service’ in NSW and later Queensland.?I worked in acute mental health units, community and rehabilitation settings including providing intensive case management.

My clinical focus was working with young people with psychosis in adult mental health settings. This was a long time before headspace and specialised mental health services for young people. ??

I worked with young people at a time of their lives should have been spreading their wings - finishing school, starting an apprenticeship, preparing for uni, hanging with friends, travelling …..instead they were grappling with a diagnosis of psychosis (a diagnosis that still remains highly stigmatised).?????

Within a decade, I was experiencing clinical burn – out and I shifted my career down a different path – still working with people living with mental illness but not in health.?Because, it wasn’t the patients, consumers, clients of the mental health service that did me over, it was the health system. ?

Mental health services are underfunded by hundreds of millions of dollars a year and this impacts most on people with complex mental illness the most.

Decades after leaving clinical mental health, there are young people I worked with I continue to ‘carry’ with me and who I believe experienced firsthand the shortfall in mental health services.?There are three young men in particular who stay with me.?All three were diagnosed with psychosis and were living with complex mental health issues.?I met each of them their late teens in the early period of their diagnosis.?All three young men did not make it to their mid-twenties …. ?

one took his own life while an inpatient in an acute mental health unit

one died in the back seat of a police car

one took his own life after being turned away from a mental health admission unit.? ???

I made the decision to post as we need to do better at understanding the services and support required for people living with complex mental health issues.?

We need to collectively understand the complexity of living with complex mental health issues ??- this includes challenging stereotypes and breaking down stigma.?

While community attitudes have shifted around anxiety and depression, there is a long way to go for psychosis.???

Learning more, questioning assumptions, and practicing confident curiosity will help us get there.

Sharing links that you may find useful in expanding understanding ?

Classic Conversations episode with Anita Link . I met Antia when I was working on Mental Health Week a decade ago. I wanted to expand the mental health conversation to psychosis. We pitched her story to Conversations with Richard Fidler, this is her story ?https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/conversations/conversations-anita-link-rpt/9009148

Eloquent and clear speaking as always Patrick McGorry https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/radionational-drive/parents-of-bondi-killer-speak-of-devastation/103710764

You Can’t Me That Series 3 Schizophrenia with Hannah Hyatt https://iview.abc.net.au/video/LE1717H006S00.?I first met Hannah at headspace she was a leader in the Youth Reference Group.?With courage, Hannah accepted my invitation to share her lived experience with a group of school students.?It was the first time Hannah had spoken publicly about living with Schizophrenia and from this place she built a well- earned her reputation as a lived experience expert voice.

This one was shared by Rachel Green and Cameron Solnordal https://twitter.com/theprojecttv/status/1780164735255577018